Generation issue

Housework in Austria remains a “woman’s job”

The most popular household activities among Austrians are cooking (42%) and vacuuming (30%).(Bild: mladen mitrinovic, stock.adobe.com)

Cleaning and housework is still predominantly a woman's job in Austria. A new survey shows that 70 percent of women feel responsible for cleaning their own home. For 23 percent of men surveyed, a clean car is more important than a clean home.

According to the survey*, the fact that housework is largely in the hands of women also leads to an increased workload for women. While just under a quarter of the men surveyed (23%) felt that the burden of daily housework was very heavy to somewhat heavy, more than one in three women (36%) felt this way.

When it came to the popularity of cleaning, women and men were exceptionally in agreement: 60 percent of respondents (64 percent men, 55 percent women) did not like cleaning at all. Almost three quarters of women (73%) said they cleaned alone, while 46% of the men surveyed only cleaned together with their partner.

Cleaning grouches across generations
Among men, only around a third (35%) of respondents felt responsible for cleaning. There was no difference between the generations. The male representatives of Gen Z are the same cleaning grouches as their baby boomer counterparts. 

Cooking, on the other hand, tops the "hit list" of the most popular household activities (42 percent), followed by vacuuming (30 percent).

* The study on the "Cleaning behavior of Austrians" was conducted by TQS-Research & Consulting KG on behalf of Vorwerk Austria. 1,000 people in Austria were surveyed using CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interviews), representative according to age, gender, federal state and living situation. At the time of the survey (May 23 to May 27, 2024), the respondents were between 15 and 68 years old, self-reported as male, female or diverse and lived alone or in multi-person households, in different-sex or same-sex relationships).